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There is more information available in the world than any one person could hope to consume (hundreds of exabytes of data), but most of that information is uninteresting, out of date, inaccurate, or not relevant for you. The key to reducing information overload is to more efficiently find the data you want among the information that you don't care about.

When I started using social media in the classroom, I looked for and began to learn from more experienced educators. First, I read and then tried to comment usefully on their blog posts and tweets. When I began to understand who knew what in the world of social media in education, I narrowed my focus to the most knowledgeable and adventurous among them. I paid attention to the people the savviest social media educators paid attention to. I added and subtracted voices from my attention network, listened and followed, then commented and opened conversations. When I found something I thought would interest the friends and strangers I was learning from, I passed along my own learning through my blogs and Twitterstream. I asked questions, asked for help, and eventually started providing answers and assistance to those who seemed to know less than I. The teachers I had been learning from had a name for what I was doing -- "growing a personal learning network." So I started looking for and learning from people who talked about HOW to grow a "PLN" as the enthusiasts called them. Learning innovator Will Richardson led me to Shelly Terrell, who genuinely lives out her "collaborate for change" maxim.

Personal Learning Networks can be important in helping you find authorities in a field. A collection of professionals, a network of enthusiasts on a subject, can provide checks on opinion and fact.

"What is it? Here's an article by BIE, updated from its original appearance in the September 2010 issue of Educational Leadership magazine from ASCD. Good for general audiences as well as educators, it explains the essential elements that make rigorous PBL different from "doing projects." Why do we like it? This article was written because some teachers say they "do projects" already (so why learn more about PBL) and some educators and members of the general public may have negative stereotypes of PBL as merely a "fun" or "hands-on" activity. How can you use it? Share this article with anyone, from teachers to parents to administrators, to explain PBL and provide a common framework for projects. The 8 Essential Elements are the basis of BIE's Project Design Rubric and PBL 101 Workshop."

"Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. "

Using twitter effectively is a critical thinking skill. Howard describes this in detail.

t's no secret that curiosity makes learning more effective and enjoyable. Curious students not only ask questions, but also actively seek out the answers. Without curiosity, Sir Isaac Newton would have never formulated the laws of physics, Alexander Fleming probably wouldn't have discovered penicillin, and Marie Curie's pioneering research on radioactivity may not exist.